Is There a Shakespeare Authorship Question?

Recently an outstanding Shakespeare scholar has suggested to me that there is no Shakespeare Authorship Question. Here are a few possible ways to interpret that suggestion, and my responses:

1. It doesn't matter who wrote the works of Shakespeare; the works should be evaluated on their own terms, without regard to authorship. Any biographical readings, even if we know for certain the author's identity, aren't likely to enrich our understanding of the works. "Shakespeare" IS the works of Shakespeare. Nothing else should concern us.

This is the current, default interpretation of the works of Shakespeare. The biography of William Shakespeare offers no insights into the works themselves, so it is almost universally ignored. This has pretty much always been the case, and it is the case today. Fanciful biographies have been produced for generations, but the bulk of scholarship over the past 100+ years largely disregards William Shakespeare the individual.

Biographical readings also tend to lead people away from the texts themselves, causing confusion and often not adding a lot of insight. A good example is guessing games about the intent of John Donne's poems. Even though a lot is known about his life -- and no one doubts his authorship -- biographical interpretations of his poems really aren't fruitful. It is also likely true that works of that period were less autobiographical than more recent literature.

However, the Shakespeare Authorship Question is a question of historical fact. Some single person put pen to paper and wrote most or all of the Shakespeare canon. That single person must have accessed and read the sources of Shakespeare's works. That person must have known the vocabulary  used and the facts described. That person must have been alive when the works of Shakespeare were being written. That person must have had the motivation -- whatever that might have been -- to write those specific works at the specific times they were written.

Through careful historical research we very well may be able determine who that person was. The main problem up until now is that wrong Authorship Candidates have been suggested (Oxford, Marlowe, etc.) What has been provided as "evidence" for these candidates hasn't been evidence at all. This has confused the situation, and led people to abandon hope of ever resolving this question.

Failures of the past don't mean the question should be abandoned. It means that people need to adopt higher standards of facts and evidence. They need to assess the facts first and then see if it fits potential authorship candidates, rather than distorting facts to fit their favorite candidate.

Note, even if we discover the solution to the Authorship Question, that probably won't greatly alter our interpretation or understanding of the works themselves. But that doesn't invalidate the need for historical research into this question. Facts are facts and we ought to discover them as best we can.

2. The evidence is so overwhelming that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote all or most of the plays and poems attributed to him, any discussion of a Shakespeare Authorship Question is ridiculous. 

My interest is in original research, not fighting the same battles that haven't changed for 150 years. But the facts and evidence do not support this whatsoever. There is shockingly little evidence that William Shakespeare wrote anything, let alone 36+ plays and three books of poetry. The works were, of course, attributed to him. He also appears to have been a member of the acting company that produced the plays. But there is no plausible theory of how he could have written them, and there is no agreement among the implausible theories. This falls far short of conclusive proof, especially with all of the contradictory evidence.

3. The Shakespeare Authorship Debate is bad for everyone. It hurts Shakespeare studies; it takes time and resources away from more important pursuits. It is a distraction. So it should be abandoned.

Scholarship is about finding out the truth. That is the whole point. Research should follow the highest standards, but it shouldn't be restrained in this way. Free inquiry is the way that we learn new, unexpected, and important things. Stifling it is bad for everyone.

Denying the Shakespeare Authorship Question will not make it go away. Punishing and shunning people for engaging in this research has indeed discouraged it in academia. But with the current digital tools available to everyone all over the world, more and more independent researchers will be working on this issue. There is no way to stop it.

Fortunately, we are way way closer to solving this question than people realize. The correct candidate has been identified: Henry Neville. My new research will show the path to completely resolving the question once and for all. Stay tuned!

New Words in Hamlet

So in preparation for my upcoming book, I have been doing extensive research and experiments using Pervez Rizvi's database of 527 early modern English plays. Loading the data into a MySQL database makes it into an incredibly valuable research tool. He has done a great service by making this database available for anyone to use.

A key emphasis of my research is studying the vocabulary usage across plays. Here I have done a search of the "lemmas" (simplified, dictionary headword versions of words) that appear in Hamlet but do not appear in any previous plays. So it's essentially a list of the new vocabulary items that first appear in Hamlet. This is just the raw result; there may be errors or omissions based on the lemmatization, etc. It also doesn't include the poems, this is a search only on plays. So some of these words may appear in Venus and Adonis or Rape of Lucrece. But it's still a very interesting list!

abstinence
acquire
adjoin
affront
allowance
altitude
ambiguous
ankle
annexment
anticipation
apoplex
ardour
argal
arraign
artery
artless
attent
audit
auspicious
barnardo
bat
batten
benet
berattle
bernardo
betoken
bisson
blastment
blench
bloat
bodiless
bourn
brainish
brute
bunghole
buyer
buzzer
bye
calumnious
calumny
capability
casual
cataplasm
cautel
caution
caviar
cellarage
cerement
chanson
chary
cherub
chopine
circumvent
clemency
climature
coagulate
collateral
collection
comart
comical
comma
commeddle
commencement
commutual
comply
compost
compulsatory
compulsive
concernancy
condolement
congrue
conjunctive
consummation
contraction
contumely
convenience
cornelius
crant
crash
credent
criminal
croak
damon
dane
danish
dansker
debatement
decayer
definement
delve
delver
denmark
desperation
diameter
dicer
diction
dild
disappoint
disaster
dismantle
distilment
ditcher
document
dozy
drossy
dup
easiness
eastward
eggshell
eisel
elsinore
emphasis
enacture
encompassment
encumber
engineer
enseam
entreatment
equivocation
es
escote
eterne
excitement
expectance
extolment
fardel
fatness
felly
fishmonger
fitness
flagon
flaxen
flush
fortinbras
frock
fust
garbage
germane
gertrude
gibber
glare
glimpse
gonzago
graveness
grope
groundling
guildenstern
gules
hamlet
harrow
hatchment
headshake
hebona
hectic
hent
herods
hillo
historical
hoodman
horatio
hugger
illo
illume
impartment
impaste
impiteous
implement
implorator
importunate
impostume
impotence
incest
incestuous
incontinency
incorporal
incorpse
incorrect
indict
indiscretion
individable
inexplicable
infusion
inhibition
inoculate
instrumental
inventor
inventorial
israel
jawbone
jelly
jointress
kettle
kettledrum
kindless
laboursome
lamord
leaven
leprous
lewdness
loan
loggat
loneliness
lucianus
machine
malefaction
malicho
mandate
marcellus
matin
mazzard
miching
mildew
milky
mine
mineral
miraculous
mobled
mortise
mousetrap
mugger
nerve
neutral
niobe
northerly
norway
noyance
nunnery
nutshell
observant
occult
occurrent
offendo
omen
operant
ophelia
oppressor
ordinant
ore
origin
osric
ossa
outbreak
overcrow
overdo
overgrowth
overhasty
overstep
overtop
overweigh
paddle
paddock
pah
pall
palmy
pansy
pastor
pastoral
peculiar
pendant
permanent
perturb
perusal
petard
pickax
pious
plausive
plautus
pleurisy
pocky
poem
poisoner
polack
polonius
ponderous
portraiture
potency
precede
precurse
prenominate
presentment
pressure
prettiness
primal
primy
proposer
provincial
puh
purport
pursy
pyrrhus
quarry
questionable
quickness
quietus
quillity
ratifier
real
recognizance
reconcilement
rede
redeliver
relative
repel
repugnant
requiem
respeak
responsive
retrograde
revisit
reword
reynaldo
rhapsody
rosencrantz
rummage
salary
sanctuarize
sanity
sate
satirical
satyr
savageness
saviour
savoury
schoolfellow
screen
scrimer
se
select
seneca
shard
shark
shatter
sheepskin
shipwright
shred
signet
skyish
sled
sleeper's
sliver
solidity
southerly
spectator
spendthrift
splenitive
springe
squeeze
stallion
station
statist
stithy
stow
strewment
sulphurous
sultry
summit
suppliance
supposal
survivor
suspiration
swinish
swisser
swoopstake
tan
temperance
tenable
test
tether
tetter
thereunto
tinct
total
traduce
tropical
truepenny
truster
turbulent
tweak
tyrannical
ubique
ulcer
ulcerous
umbrage
unaneled
uncharge
unction
uneffectual
unfellowed
unfledged
unforced
unfortified
ungored
unhand
unhouseled
unimproved
unknowing
unlimited
unmask
unmastered
unmixed
unnerved
unpack
unpeg
unpolluted
unpregnant
unprevailing
unproportioned
unreclaimed
unrighteous
unripe
unsanctified
unshake
unshape
unsifted
unsmirched
unused
unwatched
unweeded
unwring
uphoard
upspring
vanquisher
ventage
vienna
voltemand
voucher
waterfly
weedy
wharf
wheaten
whensoever
whiff
wick
windlass
wittenberg
woundless
yaw
yeasty
yorick
zone

Was Shakespeare a Woman? A few thoughts

Elizabeth Winkler set the world ablaze with her article Was Shakespeare a Woman in The Atlantic Monthly. A few key points.

1. The article is probably the best-written piece ever on the Shakespeare Authorship Question. It's also incredibly accurate in the details; I can't really quibble with the factual accuracy of anything in the article.

2. The reaction to the article has been fascinating to watch. The "big names" in Shakespeare apologetics have largely remained silent or dismissed it casually. They've figured out that defending Shakespeare, since their defense is so weak, doesn't help their cause. Better to just dismiss attacks rather than engaging.

3. The evidence for Emilia Bassano Lanier (Lanyer)'s authorship is extremely light. In fact, there's  really no reason at all to think she wrote the works of Shakespeare. The evidence about her family names appearing in the plays certainly could be something real, but it doesn't imply authorship. She really was too young to have written the plays/poems and lived way too long after. In addition, her poetry just isn't like Shakespeare's. There's no way the author of Shakespeare's works wrote these poems in 1611.

4. Obviously, I think that Henry Neville wrote the works of Shakespeare, so I don't think a woman wrote the works of Shakespeare. However, it is very likely that Henry Neville's wife, Anne Killigrew Neville, was in some ways involved in the works of Shakespeare. We will probably never know all of the details, but she was a highly educated woman and may have played a substantial role.